Night, Night
by Nalana
Summary: A BekaCentric ficlet. Little Beka sneaks into her father's room for her nightly ritual. Memories.


Disclaimer: I don't own Andromeda or it's characters. I'm just writing this for fun.

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"Daddy?" A soft voice whispered past the constant humming of over heated drivers. The automated doors outside Captain Valentine's doors slid open without a hiss. Through the opening popped a small girl with a tangled mess of red hair braided down along her back. In her arms she clutched a plush teddy bear tightly to her person. It was a remnant of the planet they originated from. And while Mr. Valentine was glad his family got away from Earth, there were still childhood pleasures that shouldn't be forgotten. 

The said girl tip-toed in carefully into the plush sleeping quarters of the Eureka Maru's captain. Her moves were cautious and deliberate. She didn't want to wake the sleeping man. Her inquiry of entrance was simply to make sure the coast was clear. If not, she simply would have used the nightmare card. Little Rebecca Valentine always had a trick up her sleeve- it ran in the family.

She let her eyes adjust to the room before continuing on in further. She knew this room like the back of her hand. Two more steps and her feet would hit the old stained carpet that her father insisted on keeping. Five steps to the right was the bed-side table. Or, rather, the stand her father had set his bed beside. He said it made him feel like he was in a home. Beka didn't buy it.

Once in front of the table, she would turn right on her heel and crawl up onto the springy mattress. Her father always slept on the opposite side of the bed for the same reason he kept the old rug and the table. He couldn't let himself forget Beka's mother. For some reason, Mrs. Valentine had wanted to keep every part of Earth she left she could with her. And though her husband was utterly stubborn, she could at least have a few comforts.

Mother? Hah. Beka thought to herself. Even at the age of eight she knew what had happened. They wouldn't say it, but she knew the story. The senior Valentine female had been an important women where she came from. A senator, in fact. She had gladly left her appointment when she ran away with Ignatious. But, the life of a interstellar trader was not something that Mrs. valentine wanted for an extended time.

Beka had barely been three when her mother had slipped away in the middle of the night. They had allowed a fellow trader to wait on the Maru until his partner came to pick him up. Mrs. valentine saw the opportunity and struck a deal with the young man. She would pay him for a ride back to her home planet.

From that day, Beka never heard another word from the brown-haired women. Rafe, her slippery brother, had started changing. He became more withdrawn and started stealing anything he could get his fingers on. The little girl had many a night cried when she discovered her bear was gone. But, that was when I was a baby. Beka thought to herself. She WAS six now.

Her father shifted in his sleep, rolling onto his back. It would start. She knew her father's sleeping cycle almost as well as the room she was in. In a few minutes from now he would be tossing and turning uncontrollably. His eyebrows would knot together and his breathing would become somewhat labored. After a set of those aggravations, the skin on his checks would compress and contract, the eyes rolling under their lids. It was like he was trying to shield himself from a solar flame directly in front of him. After the fury, there would be silence.

The wrinkles would disappear, and the grunts and groans smoothed over into gentle mumbling. Occasionally a smile would wrap it's way up his face. Other times, it would lay taught. Either way, it reminded Beka of that old Earth fairy tale of a princess with skin the color of snow. Her father had just ate a poison apple, and now lay in a peaceful sleep until his prince...ss... would come to wake him.

Beka reached out her hand to push away the hair that lay matted on the one before her's face. Sweat stuck to her finger tips, but she only swept them along his brow collecting more of the oily bits. Discarding the liquid on the pillowcase near him, she'd continue to trace his face. She'd start at his eyebrows, than to his nose, his ragged jaw line, and so on until every contour and premature wrinkle had been mapped out.

Over the past few months, she had seen her father go through so many ups and downs that she never quite knew what was wrong. He always seemed up tight and on edge. It was all she could do to keep out of his way and try to please him. She kept up on her homework that he gave her, he tried to assist him in making repairs, and even attempted to keep her quarters... somewhat... neat. But none of it seemed to really work. He always appeared to be on the verge of tears.

Only now in the night cycles of whatever planet they were boarded on, or system they stayed in, could she see him like this. Fits of terror and worry would continue in a quick revolt to the deepest slumber. But, not now. Now he was relaxing. Fantasies of other times, happier days, of smiling faces, and legal professions would flood over him. In these brief hours of sleep he would grin. And that grin kept her going.

Satisfied with her work, she moved to get up and hop back along to bed. But not tonight. No, tonight, she decided, I'm not going to run.

Pulling back the comforter that was folded over his tall torso, Beka slipped her feet to waist under the sheets. Once she had shifted into a somewhat comfortable position, she laid her head against her father's chest gingerly. She could hear him mumble something inaudible, but didn't dwell on what it was. Instead she closed her eyes.

There, in the comfort of her old man's blood she drifted off into a world of her own. Her lullaby wasn't the birds that inhabited the planet rotating below them, but of the rhythmic breathing beneath her. Beka nuzzled against the only parent she had ever known, her protector, her friend. If only this could be forever, was her last thought.

Past Twenty years later, a much older and blonde Rebecca placed a worn and torn photograph onto her own bedside. She hadn't been surprised when her pesky elder sibling had snapped a picture and taunted her for a month with it the following morning. How was she to know that a item of blackmail would become her most prized possession?

She had turned to it several times over the past few years. But no matter what turmoil overcame her, that memory would always rejuvenate her. She had told a purple Trance that she had went into her father's quarters long ago when she had re-encountered Cid. What she hadn't told her it was her own hope. It was her light.

This night, though, she would sleep with the picture turned away from her. Tonight she didn't need her protector. For once, the vision would suffice.


End file.
